Insight as a Service

Do customers using SaaS, & vendors providing SaaS gain any better insight than those using traditional methods of software delivery? The answer (surprisingly) seems to be - yes.

One of the benefits application providers accrue is insight based on information gathered across all of their customers. Application vendors can aggregate information across their various customer base to provide information on trends seen within a specific segment or a specific region. For e.g. Student Information System providers can deliver insight to their customers on student scores across subjects, and across regions. Horizontal application providers like Human Resources systems can identify compensation trends across industries and across regions.

Application Hosters can also provide information to application developers on which areas within the product were more frequently used, where customers spent the most time, and even which pages took the most time to load.

SaaS vendors also provide information on who accessed the application, when, and for how long. Such metrics can help their customers gauge the effectiveness of their SaaS application usage and usage patterns.

Finally, SaaS vendors can understand which of their customers have higher adoption rates, which ones use more modules, and which ones can benefit from additional services.

If information & insight is powerful, then SaaS packs a punch.

The SaaS Paradox

One of the interesting questions that was asked at an event recently was whether the slowdown in the US economy would have an impact slowdown SaaS' momentum. Its an interesting paradox whether something that reduces customer spending up front, may in fact be impacted by the reduced customer spending.

The arguments for a SaaS slowdown were cited as a general slowdown in tech spending, and a cut back in Marketing and other "non-essential" budgets that typically spend on SaaS applications.

The arguments against a SaaS slowdown were that SaaS apps are no longer "discretionary", they are mainstream apps that have a tangible ROI & benefit for the customer. If anything, customers demand a higher return on their tech investment in a slowdown, and with SaaS, one can see the benefits of technology investments much more clearly & quickly than in a traditional technology spend. The slowdown according to some, might actually make SaaS more mainstream as customers focus on their core businesses, reduce their capital spend, while keeping their operational expenses in check.

Whether SaaS will be impacted by a slowdown or not is something that time will tell, however its clear that SaaS is here to stay, and is certainly not going away.

SaaS - All Hype and No Play?

One of my friends after reading my blog asked me to outline some of the primary benefits of SaaS. While some of the the benefits may resonate more than others with the readers, to me the primary benefits of SaaS t(real and Perceived) to the end user include:

• Lower Operational Cost: due to scale advantage that provider is able to leverage and distribute across multiple customers
• Lower Cost of Customization & Software Maintenance
• Faster Initial Deployment & Upgrades
• Up-to-date Features provided by Specialist (do not have to wait for patch)
• Access to Industry-wide Best Practices (software user does not have to hire in-house industry expert)
• Strategic Benefits: Ability to Focus on Company’s Core Competencies (as opposed to IT)
• Balance Sheet Management; Fixed to Variable Cost Conversion

If some of the readers have additional benefits that they can list, please comment on it. Also, i would love to hear more about how different vendors are innovating with SaaS to provide new applications to the end-user, so send me your favorites or nominees.